--------------Given that we are all descended from Adam and Eve...genetic defects as a result of intra-family marriage would not begin to crop up until after the first few dozen generations. - Dr. Hugh Ross

Human emotional expressions, such as laughter, are argued to have their origins in ancestral nonhuman primate displays [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] and [6]. To test this hypothesis, the current work examined the acoustics of tickle-induced vocalizations from infant and juvenile orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos, as well as tickle-induced laughter produced by human infants. Resulting acoustic data were then coded as character states and submitted to quantitative phylogenetic analysis. Acoustic outcomes revealed both important similarities and differences among the five species. Furthermore, phylogenetic trees reconstructed from the acoustic data matched the well-established trees based on comparative genetics. Taken together, the results provide strong evidence that tickling-induced laughter is homologous in great apes and humans and support the more general postulation of phylogenetic continuity from nonhuman displays to human emotional expressions. Findings also show that distinctively human laughter characteristics such as predominantly regular, stable voicing and consistently egressive airflow are nonetheless traceable to characteristics of shared ancestors with great apes.

--------------"Random mutations, if they are truly random, will affect, and potentially damage, any aspect of the organism, [...]Thus, a realistic [computer] simulation [of evolution] would allow the program, OS, and hardware to be affected in a random fashion." GilDodgen, Frilly shirt owner

Several classes of nucleic acid analogs have been reported, but no synthetic informational polymer has yet proven responsive to selection pressures under enzyme free conditions. Here, we introduce an oligomer family that efficiently self-assembles via reversible covalent anchoring of nucleobase recognition units onto simple oligo-dipeptide backbones [thioester peptide nucleic acids (tPNA)] and undergoes dynamic sequence modification in response to changing templates in solution. The oligomers specifically self-pair with complementary tPNA strands and cross-pair with RNA and DNA in Watson-Crick fashion. Thus, tPNA combines base-pairing interactions with the side chain functionalities of typical peptides and proteins. These characteristics might prove advantageous for the design or selection of catalytic constructs or biomaterials that are capable of dynamic sequence repair and adaptation.

Cells Are Like Robust Computational Systems, Scientists ReportScienceDaily (June 17, 2009) — Gene regulatory networks in cell nuclei are similar to cloud computing networks, such as Google or Yahoo!, researchers report today in the online journal Molecular Systems Biology. The similarity is that each system keeps working despite the failure of individual components, whether they are master genes or computer processors.

The researchers also used stuffed taxidermic mounts to test the birds' ability to recognize their own subspecies and found that the two groups of flycatchers consistently preferred their own kind. Together, these results indicate that the single genetic swap probably set speciation in motion, Uy said.

The researchers also used stuffed taxidermic mounts to test the birds' ability to recognize their own subspecies and found that the two groups of flycatchers consistently preferred their own kind. Together, these results indicate that the single genetic swap probably set speciation in motion, Uy said.

SUCK IT DARWINIST HOMOS. MAYBE THERE ARE INUIT FLYCATCHERS. GO BURN A CHURCH - DT

how do they know what they looklike?! huh?? answer that darwinist!!1! no pocket mirrors in the Malay junglebesides both subspecies actually preferred the BLOND flycatchers, even ones with dark roots ha i kill myself"flycatchers" who is gonna believe that anyway sounds gay and gays species go extinct faster than debbie gibson's hairstyle -dt

"Speciation through a single base mutation" still remains highly misleading and does not reflect the orignal article title. Although cannot have access full-text articles from Am. Nat., I do not see unambiguous evidence that this mutation has promoted reproductive isolation between these birds. Moreover, the populations are allopatric, which makes the question of reproductive isolation partly irrelevant.

In this new era of speciation genomic, it should be stressed that a mutation that is shown to cause reproductive incompatibilities may not have historically promoted speciation. There are certainly thousands of genetic incompatibilities and millions of fixed mutations differentiating humans and our sister species (chimps). Obviously, not every single one is a "speciation gene". This partly applies to related species fruit flies, in which some claim to have identified such genes.

One has to infer how reproductive barriers have evolved. But this is essentially impossible when speciation is complete and when many types of reproductive barriers prevent successful hybridation.

Not to mention that the original cause might have simply been geographic isolation.

Henry

Allopatry surely permit speciation in birds and many other animals, but it is not considered as a reproductive barrier, since geography is not a trait. Plumage color may well determine mate choice in these birds; but in allopatric populations, reproductive barriers are irrelevant.

A new Channel 4 series shows the dissection of giant animals. Ajesh Patalay reports.

By Ajesh PatalayPublished: 5:13PM BST 23 Jun 2009

Of the many extraordinary sights revealed in Channel 4’s upcoming four-part series Inside Nature’s Giants, which uses dissection to take us inside the bodies of an elephant, giraffe and crocodile, the most remarkable is surely afforded by an autopsy carried out on a 65-foot long, 60-ton fin whale (a species second only in size to the blue whale) beached off the coast of Ireland.

“I am always awed by how magnificently large and streamlined whales are,” says Dr Joy Reidenberg, the comparative anatomist who oversaw the in situ dissection amid gales, driving rain and hail. Working against the effects of rapid decomposition and an advancing tide that threatened to engulf the whale, Reidenberg’s team had only a few hours to complete the dissection. “It’s a messy operation,” Reidenberg explains. “You have to dissect it from the inside out. At one point I crawled under the ribcage to get to the heart. All you could see were my boots sticking out.”

The team excised over 200 feet of guts, which were loaded onto dumper trucks and laid out on tarp sheets the size of an Olympic swimming pool. Other markers of the whale’s immensity included jaws weighing three tons each, a heart the size of a small car and a windpipe wide enough, says Reidenberg, “that I could actually wear it like a dress”.

Inside Nature’s Giants, which starts on Monday, is the brainchild of producer David Dugan of Windfall Films (also behind The Operation: Surgery Live). “I had been reading about Darwin and early animal dissections carried out by his friend Richard Owen,” Dugan says. “Each animal’s evolutionary past is hidden within its anatomy. These dissections gave us the chance to show how natural selection created these animals.”

Collaborating with the Royal Veterinary College, Dugan recruited a team of experts including the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (the author of The God Delusion) who, says Dugan, got “terribly excited” by the prospect of dissecting a giraffe. Its anatomy is key in proving evolution over intelligent design (the belief that the complexity of living things demonstrates the existence of a creator). Rather than passing a few inches directly between the larynx and the brain, the giraffe’s recurrent laryngeal nerve (which stimulates the voice box) takes a huge detour up and down the neck. This, says Dawkins, is not the work of Intelligent Design: “A designer can go back to the drawing board and come back with something more sensible. Evolution can’t. Evolution has no foresight.”

The dissection goes on to show how the giraffe’s neck, despite its length, contains only seven vertebrae (the same as humans) and how in order to maintain its high blood pressure the giraffe has evolved a thick heart wall muscle and tight skin around its legs that act like pressure stockings.

Before the workings of the elephant can be dissected, the team has to release the build-up of gases caused by decomposition and fermentation (elephants produce 2,000 litres of methane a day, enough to fill a weather balloon). The resultant hiss of escaping gas is deafening. Having unpacked the elephant’s massive guts, the team examines its trunk (a marvel of engineering that saves the elephant from having to lower its weighty head to pick up food), its ears (flooded with blood vessels to aid cooling) and its feet, which bear up to three tons each and are cushioned with chunky insoles of fat that mimic a pogo-stick in propelling the elephant forward as it runs.

With the series’s deluge of blood and guts, the obvious question is whether viewers will prove too squeamish to endure. “It’s a worry,” says Dugan. “But when you get inside the head of an anatomist and start looking at it as a problem of engineering or evolution, you stop noticing the gore and it becomes so interesting.”

Reidenberg hopes that the series will not only educate viewers about evolution but also give them “an appreciation of how special these animals are”. She adds: “Whenever I see an animal like this, I feel sad that it’s dead but there’s also this marvellous opportunity to open up a present and see what’s inside. Every animal is unique. I hope people come to love and understand some of the natural beauty there and not be grossed out by it.”

Inside Nature’s Giants begins on Monday on Channel 4 at 9.00 pm.

--------------And the set of natural numbers is also the set that starts at 0 and goes to the largest number. -- Joe G

If we compare this value with the rate of entropy production due to sunlight in Eq. (3), we find that the second law, in the form of Eq. (1), is satisfied as long as the time required for life to evolve on Earth is at leastdelta t =|deltaSlife|/(dS/dt)sun ~ 10^7 s, (6)or less than a year. Life on Earth took four billion years to evolve, so the second law of thermodynamics is safe.

Steyr 2007 was blogged by PZ Myers, which was picked up by PT. This paper tries to be a bit more rigorous, even though there is still a lot of hand waving in parts.

Ironic lapses of mental control often appear when we attempt to be socially desirable, as when we try to keep our minds out of the gutter. People instructed to stop thinking of sex, for example, show greater arousal (as gauged by finger skin conductance) than do those asked to stop thinking about a neutral topic. Indeed, levels of arousal are inflated during the suppression of sex thoughts to the same degree that they inflate during attempts to concentrate on such thoughts (8). In research on sexual arousal per se, male participants instructed to inhibit erections as they watched erotic films found it harder than they had hoped, so to speak—particularly if they imbibed a mental load in the form of a couple of alcoholic drinks (30). Ironic effects also may underlie the tendency of homophobic males to show exaggerated sexual arousal to homoerotic pictures (31).

The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals. Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men (n = 35) and a group of nonhomophobic men (n = 29); they were assigned to groups on the basis of their scores on the Index of Homophobia (W. W. Hudson & W. A. Ricketts, 1980). The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. They also completed an Aggression Questionnaire (A. H. Buss & M. Perry, 1992). Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. The groups did not differ in aggression. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies.

** That's the post that started it all. Klinghoffer reposted a comment from a reader that he found "brilliantly insightful". I think it's friggin' hilarious.

Quote

The social history behind this piece is clear: once they've experienced sex with other men, Catullus tells us, men are unsatisfied with what their new wives provide them. Notice that the poet is unconcerned about the husband's dallying with other women -- it's the other men around that threaten the marital union. [...]

And so now we come back to the idyllic day of free choice and tolerance envisioned by the gay and lesbian movement. It turns out that that day has winners and losers. The winners -- big time -- are homosexual men, because the historical record shows that they can expect their potential pool of partners to expand exponentially. Of note here is that this expanded pool of partners accrues to gay men, but not to homosexual women. At the risk of getting too explicit, I leave it the reader's basic grasp of anatomy to figure out why in ancient Rome a man who found pleasure in a woman, could also find pleasure in a man, while the record shows that a heterosexual woman rarely found sexual satisfaction in the company of another woman.

The losers from all this will be the vast majority of women. With full social sanction given to homoerotic activity, the historical precedent suggests that tomorrow's women will have a harder time finding and holding on to suitable men. As women will suffer, so will the vitality and stability of the nuclear family.[...]

But there is a utilitarian argument as well: full social sanction for the homoerotic bond is opposed not for God's sake, but for the sake of tomorrow's women.

tl;dr: If homosexuality becomes socially acceptable, all men will become gay and women won't find someone to marry.

--------------"Random mutations, if they are truly random, will affect, and potentially damage, any aspect of the organism, [...]Thus, a realistic [computer] simulation [of evolution] would allow the program, OS, and hardware to be affected in a random fashion." GilDodgen, Frilly shirt owner

Ironic lapses of mental control often appear when we attempt to be socially desirable, as when we try to keep our minds out of the gutter. People instructed to stop thinking of sex, for example, show greater arousal (as gauged by finger skin conductance) than do those asked to stop thinking about a neutral topic. Indeed, levels of arousal are inflated during the suppression of sex thoughts to the same degree that they inflate during attempts to concentrate on such thoughts (8). In research on sexual arousal per se, male participants instructed to inhibit erections as they watched erotic films found it harder than they had hoped, so to speak—particularly if they imbibed a mental load in the form of a couple of alcoholic drinks (30). Ironic effects also may underlie the tendency of homophobic males to show exaggerated sexual arousal to homoerotic pictures (31).

The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals. Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men (n = 35) and a group of nonhomophobic men (n = 29); they were assigned to groups on the basis of their scores on the Index of Homophobia (W. W. Hudson & W. A. Ricketts, 1980). The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. They also completed an Aggression Questionnaire (A. H. Buss & M. Perry, 1992). Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. The groups did not differ in aggression. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies.

** That's the post that started it all. Klinghoffer reposted a comment from a reader that he found "brilliantly insightful". I think it's friggin' hilarious.

Quote

The social history behind this piece is clear: once they've experienced sex with other men, Catullus tells us, men are unsatisfied with what their new wives provide them. Notice that the poet is unconcerned about the husband's dallying with other women -- it's the other men around that threaten the marital union. [...]

And so now we come back to the idyllic day of free choice and tolerance envisioned by the gay and lesbian movement. It turns out that that day has winners and losers. The winners -- big time -- are homosexual men, because the historical record shows that they can expect their potential pool of partners to expand exponentially. Of note here is that this expanded pool of partners accrues to gay men, but not to homosexual women. At the risk of getting too explicit, I leave it the reader's basic grasp of anatomy to figure out why in ancient Rome a man who found pleasure in a woman, could also find pleasure in a man, while the record shows that a heterosexual woman rarely found sexual satisfaction in the company of another woman.

The losers from all this will be the vast majority of women. With full social sanction given to homoerotic activity, the historical precedent suggests that tomorrow's women will have a harder time finding and holding on to suitable men. As women will suffer, so will the vitality and stability of the nuclear family.[...]

But there is a utilitarian argument as well: full social sanction for the homoerotic bond is opposed not for God's sake, but for the sake of tomorrow's women.

tl;dr: If homosexuality becomes socially acceptable, all men will become gay and women won't find someone to marry.

Any single woman in new York City could tell you that all the desirable men were either gay or taken.

Any single woman in new York City could tell you that all the desirable men were either gay or taken.

Well. The only difference, if you still live in a place were homosexuality is a no no, is that it's not gay or taken but gay, taken, or both.BTW, we all know who's fault it is that there are so many gays. Pornography!

Quote

Some of Dr. Manning’s patients report first encountering pornography at the very young age of 5 or 6. One patient—now a grown man—is struggling with same-sex attraction. He firmly believes he is straight, and wants to get married and have a family. But his first sexual experience was with homosexual pornography—at the age of 9.

--------------"Random mutations, if they are truly random, will affect, and potentially damage, any aspect of the organism, [...]Thus, a realistic [computer] simulation [of evolution] would allow the program, OS, and hardware to be affected in a random fashion." GilDodgen, Frilly shirt owner